James Morgan and Aaron Hicks were convicted of violent sex crimes and served many years in prison.

Now
they are on parole, living in Madison neighborhoods, attending
treatment groups and wearing global positioning system (GPS) ankle
monitors — tracking that, under Wisconsin law, will continue for the
rest of their lives.

But
Morgan, Hicks and 11 other offenders interviewed for this report say
that Wisconsin’s GPS tracking system repeatedly fails, registering false
alerts and landing the offenders in jail although they have done
nothing wrong.

“There
are times when I’m afraid to leave whatever room I’m in, even to go to
the bathroom,” said Morgan, 53, who served 26 years in prison for sexual
assault and other crimes.

“I’m afraid an alert will go off and the police will show up at my door.”

On
July 31, Morgan stood in his Madison bedroom with a Wisconsin Center
for Investigative Journalism photographer. On several occasions, his GPS
monitor began flashing, indicating he was out of range, even though
Morgan was in his own home and well within boundaries determined by his
parole agent.

Offenders
and their advocates say GPS breakdowns waste taxpayers’ money with
unnecessary police work and lockups, and hamper offenders’ efforts to
restore relationships with their families and retain jobs.

Even
the people who make the GPS technology acknowledge that signals can be
lost due to weather conditions, tall buildings and car travel.

A
key legislator, the chairman of the Assembly Committee on Corrections,
said he was unaware of any problems with the state’s GPS monitoring
system. But he was concerned by the Center’s findings, and said that an
audit may be in order.

“Yes,
I think it would be proper to inquire about the accuracy and
effectiveness of our monitoring system if offenders are indeed
experiencing these problems,” said state Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay.

But
Bies, a former Door County sheriff’s deputy, added, “I really don’t
have a whole lot of sympathy” for sexual offenders and whatever
“inconvenience” they may have to endure.

As of February, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections was using GPS
technology to track 638 offenders. According to DOC spokeswoman Jackie
Guthrie, “The majority are sex offenders with a very small number being
offenders convicted of domestic violence or other violent crimes.” She
was unable to provide a breakdown.

And GPS monitoring in Wisconsin is projected to expand by nearly 50 percent over the next two years.

A
Wisconsin state law passed last April, set to take full effect in 2014,
allows judges to require GPS tracking for offenders who violate a
domestic abuse or harassment temporary restraining order or injunction.

Gov.
Scott Walker’s proposed budget recommends $10 million in new funding
for expanded use of GPS tracking in fiscal years 2014 and 2015 — to
monitor 783 individuals the first year and 939 the second year.

'Nothing's perfect'

Significant
concerns about the reliability of GPS tracking have arisen in at least
seven other states. The technology has been found both to sound alerts
in error and miss offenders’ transgressions when they do occur.

Last
September, an audit in Tennessee revealed massive oversights in the
state’s GPS offender tracking system. More than 80 percent of alerts
from GPS-monitored offenders “were not cleared or confirmed” by
corrections agents, including alerts triggered after individuals
appeared to enter prohibited areas such as parks and schools.

The
Wisconsin DOC insists its system, and the devices it leases from
Colorado-based Behavioral Interventions, or BI, are reliable.

“We
are not aware of any ‘problems’ with our GPS monitoring system, and
have several protocols in place to ensure that the integrity of our
system is maintained,” Guthrie wrote in an email.

BI
spokeswoman Monica Hook maintained that GPS technology is “a reliable
alternative to incarceration” and that millions of people have worn the
devices over the years.

Yet,
she conceded, “it’s a manmade device. There are certain things that we
safeguard against, but nothing’s perfect.” She said the Wisconsin DOC
has “discretion” to determine how to handle alerts.

The DOC rejected the Center’s request for records regarding its
protocols for dealing with dropped signals or false GPS alerts, saying
offenders could use this information to “defeat the monitoring device.”

Guthrie
said the agency does not keep statistics on how many alerts are
triggered for GPS offenders, and does not track how often these result
in offenders being incarcerated.

The DOC, she said, also has not conducted audits or quality reviews of its GPS program, which began operating in 2007.

Tracked
offenders wear anklets at all times. Those with older, two-piece models
must carry a portable GPS device that communicates with satellites and
sends data to a central monitoring center in Madison. One-piece models
include this device in the anklet. The DOC says the two-piece models are
being phased out.

If
an offender crosses into a restricted “exclusion zone,” an alert is
sent to the monitoring center, which can investigate the problem. “One
of the outcomes,” Guthrie said, “could be an apprehension or arrest.”

'You just want to give up'

In
all, the Center interviewed a dozen sex offenders, and one person
convicted of stalking, who complained of problems with their tracking
units.

Sam
Bratsven, convicted in 2001 of sexual assault of a child in Winnebago
County, says challenges with his GPS unit have cost him jobs. In one of
several discrimination complaints with the state Division of Equal
Rights, he even has evidence.

In
response to one such complaint, filed in 2011, an attorney for a
company that chose not to hire Bratsven for a particular job noted that
his two-hour application process was disrupted four to six times by his
GPS device. The attorney said this “indicate(d) a high level of
potential for disruption in any assignment where the applicant could be
placed.”

His attorney, Andrew Phillips, said the case was settled out of court to the “satisfaction of both parties.”

Matthew
Becker, convicted of sexual assaults in 2005 and 2007 in Winnebago
County, estimates he has been jailed six times due to problems with his
GPS equipment and that he has lost “thousands of dollars” in missed
work.

The Center was able to obtain some records on GPS alerts for
individual offenders. They show that Morgan and Hicks triggered multiple
alerts for “No GPS,” indicating their locations could not be tracked by
satellite. In May alone, Hicks triggered 206 “No GPS” alerts.

Records
show Morgan has been booked into Dane County Jail at least eight times
since June 2011, serving a total of 29 days in jail, all for violations
related to his GPS tracker.

In
each of these cases, Morgan argues the violations occurred because of
an innocent mistake, as when he went for a bike ride without bringing
along a hand-held device, or despite the fact that he was complying with
the rules.

For
instance, on Sept. 19, Morgan was jailed for four days because “he
failed to have a GPS signal” for much of a two-hour period. Morgan said
he was attending an approved University of Wisconsin-Madison class. His
English professor, Emily Auerbach, backs him up. “I know exactly where
he was” during the time in question, she said.

Hicks,
39, served 12 years for having intercourse with an unconscious woman.
Records show he has been booked into jail at least a dozen times since
April 2011 for violations related to his GPS monitor, spending a total
of 74 days behind bars.

Hicks
admits he forgot to bring his hand-held GPS tracker with him on two
occasions. He left it in his car when he entered a supermarket and left
it on a bus when traveling to work. But the other violations, he says,
were over lost signals and false alerts.

On
June 12, 2012, according to records obtained by his attorney, Hicks was
at his wife’s house, an approved location. He said he left his tracker
in an adjacent room, as he had done before without triggering alerts,
while he watched a basketball game on television and did not hear it
beep. He served a total of 51 days in jail, until after he signed an
agreement admitting he “did fail to comply with the rules and conditions
of GPS monitoring.”

“It’s
almost like taking on a new normal,” Hicks said in an interview from
the Dane County Jail in June, while jailed on this violation. “If you’re
trying to move on with your life, and you’ve got these barriers, you
just want to give up.”

Hicks’ attorney, Jessa Nicholson, thinks her client has done his best
to reintegrate but has been unfairly punished: “I’ve spoken with his
therapist, and she assessed him as posing no threat whatsoever.”

'Unworthy of life'

Now
Hicks works at Voices Beyond Bars, a Madison nonprofit that assists
former inmates. He said he does well at Madison Area Technical College,
where he attends classes. But last year, he missed a final essay for one
class because he was back in jail on a GPS violation. His grades
suffered, and he was placed on academic probation.

Morgan,
when not back in jail, lives with his elderly aunt on Madison’s north
side. He paints, often giving his work away to Madison charities. He
still takes a one-credit class at UW-Madison and works construction jobs
part time.

And
while Morgan acknowledges that his past actions have caused pain and
deserve punishment, he thinks being on GPS monitoring conveys that he is
“unworthy of life.” He said he hopes and prays “that I’m able to
continue to withstand this.”